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Journalism of Courage
On Friday (February 11), a special sessions court will begin hearing applications on the quantum of punishment for 49 of 78 accused who were convicted on February 8 in the serial bombings in Ahmedabad in 2008, in which 56 persons were killed.
The bombings
On July 26, 2008, in the span of about 70 minutes, 22 bombs went off at various places in Ahmedabad city including at the Gujarat government-run Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation-run LG Hospital, in buses, on parked bicycles, and in cars.
Fifty-six people were killed and around 200 were injured. Two bombs — planted in Kalol and Naroda — did not go off. Ahmedabad was the third city to be bombed that year, after Jaipur in May and Bengaluru just the day before.
In emails that were sent to some media houses, the Indian Mujahideen (IM), an organisation that had not been heard of until then, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
On July 27, similar bombs were found in Surat. The first of these was found by a safai kamdar who took it home thinking it was a “radio”, retired assistant commissioner of police R S Patel had told The Indian Express at the time. Until August 9, a total 29 live bombs had been recovered in the city, none of which, however, went off — the reason, according to ACP R R Sarwaiya who was with the Surat Crime Branch at the time, being their batteries were of low voltage.
In 2010 and 2011, there were blasts at Pune’s German Bakery and in Mumbai respectively, in which ANFO (ammonium nitrate) and RDX were used. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had subsequently questioned some of the accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad blasts at Sabarmati Central jail to establish their link or involvement in the later attacks.
The Indian Mujahideen
The emails purportedly sent out by the IM contained images from the Gujarat riots of 2002, and claimed the bombings were revenge for the riots and for the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992.
In all, 35 cases were registered — 20 in Ahmedabad and the rest in Surat — and the trial commenced in April 2010. Over the next seven years, 78 accused were arrested from various states.
Police investigations concluded the IM was a regrouping of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). All the bombs that went off in Ahmedabad contained a deadly cocktail of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilisers, and fuel oil (ANFO).
The accused were charged under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), provisions of the Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act, and Information Technology Act, besides the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) led the investigation. DGP Ashish Bhatia, who was JCP at Ahmedabad’s DCB at the time, was a key officer in the probe. According to Bhatia, the case was cracked before August 15, 2008, with the arrest of 11 persons initially.
Bhatia said that the bombs were placed in cars stolen from Pune and Mumbai, gas cylinders were kept in the cars, and the bombs were improvised with ball bearings. Police from Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka coordinated the investigation across multiple cities, with the use of ANFO and the IM’s claim of responsibility being the common thread.
Virtually heard
Special judge A R Patel pronounced his verdict to the accused who have been confined to their cells under section 268 of the CrPC, meant to restrain undertrials who could disturb public order. Forty-nine of the accused are in Ahmedabad jail, 10 in Bhopal jail, five in Bengaluru jail, four in Mumbai’s Taloja jail, and two each in jails in Delhi, Kerala’s Viyyur, Jaipur, and Bihar.
Naved Kadri, who has been acquitted, was the only one accused who had been on extended temporary bail since 2018 when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Trial is yet to begin for four other accused who were arrested subsequently — including the alleged co-founder of IM, Yasin Bhatkal. Bhatkal and four others were sentenced to death in 2016 by a Hyderabad court for the twin blasts in the city in 2013 that killed 18 people.
The approver
Ayaz Saiyed, now aged around 38 years, who is a resident of Vatva in Ahmedabad, was accused of planting bombs on bicycles and an AMTS bus in Naroda of Ahmedabad city, which blew up near Sarkhej. He turned approver, and has been acquitted of all charges.
Saiyed was granted bail by the Gujarat High Court in June 2020. He had submitted an application before the trial court in March 2019 seeking to be pardoned after he turned approver to support the prosecution’s case.
The application was accepted by the trial court under sections 306 and 307 CrPC. The former section permits a trial court to pardon an accused at any stage of the inquiry or trial on condition that they make a full and true disclosure of the entire circumstances of the offence within their knowledge, and on all persons concerned in the commission of the crime.
‘Jailbreak’ case
In February 2013, 14 of the serial blast accused were booked for digging a 213-foot-long tunnel while they were lodged in Sabarmati Central jail. A fresh case was registered at Ranip police station of Ahmedabad city, and a special court granted the investigating agency custody of the 14 for interrogation for 10 days.
Five of the accused — Shakib Nishar Mohammad Ismail alias Furkaan Mohammad Irshad, Jahid alias Javed Kutubuddin alias Maji Shaikh, Nadim Abdulnaim Saiyed, Iqbal alias Iksar Kasambhai Shaikh, and Usman Agarbattiwala — are from Gujarat; three each from Kerala (Saaduli Abdulkarim, Shibli Abdulkarim, and Mohammad Ansar alias Nadvi Abdulrazzak Muslim) and Uttar Pradesh (Mufti alias Abubashar Abubakkar Shaikh, Saif-ur-Rehman alias Saifu alias Saif Abdul Rehman, and Imran Ibrahim Shaikh); and two from Karnataka (Hafizhussain Tajuddin Mulla and Nasir Ahmed Liyakatali Patel).
Trial in this case is on before a magistrate’s court, and will be independent of the 2008 serial blast judgment, public prosecutor Amit Patel said. Among the 14 accused in the case, 11 were convicted on Tuesday; the other three — Nasir Ahmed Liyakatali, Saqibnishar Shaikh, and Nadeem Abdul Naeem — have been acquitted.
Twists and turns
In 2015, the prosecution sought the trial court’s permission to show photographs of the accused to panch witnesses for identification as the “appearance of the accused had changed” over the years.
The court rejected the request, observing that this may help the prosecution, and opined that identification of the accused “is the rule of prudence and not a rule of law”.
The government appealed to the Gujarat High Court, but got no relief as the HC upheld the trial court ruling and dismissed the petition.
In 2019, the Ahmedabad special court issued production warrants for 10 accused lodged in Bhopal Central Jail, and directed that they be kept at Sabarmati Central jail. Madhya Pradesh challenged the order, and the Gujarat HC ruled in its favour, proposing the court should conduct the trial by video link.
In October 2020, the trial court rejected an application by the accused asking that the defence be permitted to examine editors, reporters, and photographers of certain newspapers that had reported on the event, including The Indian Express, Ahmedabad Mirror, Sandesh, and Divya Bhaskar. As per the application of the accused, the reportage had pointed out inconsistencies in the case.
The court stated in its order that any information published in daily newspapers is provided by reporters who “manage to bring information from somewhere and by some means and editors [who] publish [the] stories… It may be the case that the said information may not be true… The reporters may have received information from the police station, from the investigating officer or even from the informant, and may have been leaked to the media.”
Studying in jail
Invoking a prisoner’s right to education, the court in September 2013 directed the Ahmedabad Central jail to give back two books on architecture that were seized from Mohammed Sami Bagewadi.
Bagewadi, who is from Bijapur, Karnataka, was a student of architecture at Vishveshwaraiah Technology University in Belgaum, Karnataka. Following his arrest, he could not continue his studies, and wanted to clear the exams of two subjects for Masters. His father had, therefore, given him seven books in March 2012.
Bagewadi has been acquitted. Many other accused also pursued education while in jail, including Safdar Nagori, who studied Gandhian philosophy, and is among those convicted.
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The judges in the case
The first designated judge for the blasts trial is now a judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Bela Trivedi.
At least eight judges were subsequently designated to preside over the trial, including B J Dhandha, V P Patel, V B Mayani, Jyotsana Yagnik, K K Bhatt, P B Desai, P C Raval and A R Patel.
Special judge A R Patel has presided over the case from June 2017 onward.
